Was there a “back door” to World War II, as some revisionist historians have asserted? According to this view, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, inhibited by the American public’s opposition to direct U.S. involvement in the fighting and determined to save Great Britain from a Nazi victory in Europe, manipulated events in the Pacific in order to provoke a Japanese attack on the U.S. naval base at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, thereby forcing the United States to enter the war on the side of Britain. The revisionist case: From neutrality to war How did Roosevelt precipitate the conflict with Japan and prepare the country for war in Europe? The revisionists argue that key events leading up to the U.S. declaration of war in 1941 show that Roosevelt sometimes used deceitful tactics to increase U.S. involvement gradually and to stir up pro-war sentiments in the American public. In their view, the circumstances immediately surrounding the attack on Pearl Harbor, when interpreted in light...